


Black Out Days

by milksteak



Series: Everybody Wants to Rule the World [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milksteak/pseuds/milksteak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya returns to cross out the last name on her list - Cersei Lannister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Out Days

**Author's Note:**

> _Black out days._  
>  I don't recognize you anymore.  
> \- Black Out Days by Phantogram 

Cigarette smoke billows from her mouth in rolling coils until they disperse, slowly pulling away from each other in their upward trajectory toward the sky. The sun lays hot on her shoulders, exposed by her black wife beater. Her hair is long now, and she hates that it is; it sits in an unruly pile atop her head, collecting sweat. When this is all done, she'll see about getting a haircut.

Arya has been waiting here all morning, but she can be patient, though she rarely is. Five long years have led to this moment. What's a few more hours?

She expected to feel more. Something along the lines of excitement, or anticipation, at least. Instead, she's sunk in surreality, calmly hovering outside her own consciousness. It's only been a few months since she reclaimed her sense of self and every so often, like now, she still sits outside of it, looking through the window. Inside, there's a woman where there once was a little girl. There's long waves where there once was choppy, hacked layers. There's sinew and strength where there was once bones and skin. There are calluses, scars, and grey eyes so dead they might as well be staring at her from the end of a hook.

 

_The shores of her home country came slowly into relief, shrouded by fog like a bride in her veil. Gulls cried murder overhead and she almost thought she could understand them. The salty, oily scent of harbor wrapped itself around her, insinuating itself into the fabric of her clothes and the strands of her hair._

_"We're docking soon, signorina."_

_"Grazie."_

_On this ship, red brown with rust, she was the signorina, the young, mysterious girl with a charming smile that never reached her wide eyes. To them, she was a character from every story but her own, a romantic heroine who stared over sunsets and kept to herself. They would remember her, but only in passing, a creature of their fantasies rather than anyone real._

_When she took her first step onto solid ground, she tied up her hair and became someone else._

  
  


Through the scope of her rifle, she sees a congregation of saturated colors collected on the courthouse steps. Women and men in smart suits, talking into microphones. Cameras and vans bearing the heraldry of different news stations. They don't see her, but she sees them, all those brightly hued and well-coiffed birds sweating beneath their foundations and powders. She points the barrel at each of them in turn, making little sounds of explosion with her mouth. Pew, blam, boom. All that cobalt blue, all that burgundy, all that could be dotted with brains and bone fragment, and all of them have no idea.

Death isn’t a gift she gives freely or lightly anymore, though maybe once she had.  As far as she knows, these people haven’t done anything to earn it.  She doesn’t pretend to be honorable, but she does tend to be selective.  Her list is shorter now than it ever was, with all its members dead, most of them not by her hand.  All of them but one.  When she falls asleep at night now, it is the one name she whispers in bed, and she whispers it with emphasis, underlining it with hatred.  

In her time in Italy, she had been taught a lot of things.  One of them was that murder was business and business should not be taken personally.  The lesson had never stuck.

 

_The girl wiped her butterfly knife clean of blood with all the care of a mother washing her son’s face after a meal.  With a glance over her shoulder, she took the familiar path into an alleyway between the tailor and the bakery, removing a loose brick on the side of the wall and laying the knife inside.  Then, she hurried to the cathedral, dipping her hands into a fountain along the way.  The bells rang their sad song; mass would begin soon._

_She slipped in through the back door, quiet as shadow, but the kindly old father was already there.  He held out his hand and she offered him the bottle of wine she had been sent to retrieve._

_“Who are you, bambina?”_

_“No one.”_

_“You lie.”_

_She had no time to argue.  The girl moved past him, through corridors that stank of mildew to her room.  Neat white robes hung from a peg on her door, freshly laundered.  She taped down her breasts, changed, washed her face, reset her expression.  The girl became the altar boy and ran to the pulpit to fulfill his duties._

 

Arya stretches her legs, calves and thighs aching from their long-held crouch.  By now, her cigarette has burned down to the filter.  She grinds the cherry into the concrete ledge of the roof and flicks it over, where it falls, unnoticed, to the ground some fifteen stories below.  Boredom is a luxury she’s not been afforded much in past years.  Boredom, she knows now, is a unique state belonging only to those at the top of their respective food chains.  Lower animals have no concept of it; every moment of their lives contributes to the struggle of survival.  In the end, she thinks, their lives are the most meaningful, even if there’s no one documenting it with a camera and a microphone.

For what has to be the hundredth time, she sits back on her heels and pulls her copy of the Wall Street Journal from her rifle case.  Arya spent a large portion of her childhood in and out of offices, hiding under desks and playing games on the computers, but even still, most of the articles might as well be written in a different language.  

Boltons Losing Hold of Stark. Baratheon-Lannister Stocks At All Time Low. Eyrie Thriving. Riverrun Considering Bankruptcy? Sunspear Oil Barons. Tyrell Bale Outs. Greyjoy Iron and Steel. What she can understand makes her consider starting a new list.

Arya hasn't considered what to do when this current list is finished. She has money. She could start fresh, take Gendry somewhere warm, live a life free of lions, wolves, and violence. The sands would be fine and the water cool. But broad statements of fantasy never sit well with her. She can never exorcise the devil in the details. What would she do? Wait tables, sell clothes? She skipped the portion of her life where menial tasks contributing to the legitimate economic system were supposed to mean anything to her. She can't imagine a life without meaning.

What other meaning is there for her?

 

_He stank. Sickly sweet and sweaty. His face was pale, making the red, mottled scar on the side of it into harsh relief. It looked like raw meat. Fever chills shook him every so often, though blanket upon blanket upon towel had been wrapped around him until there was no fabric left in the cheap motel room but the clothes she wore._

_"Fucking kill me, kid."_

_Arya unscrewed the silencer from his pistol and stuffed both into her bag. His wallet had no ID or credit card, but a small wad of cash she began counting._

_"No."_

_"Why not? Isn't this what you were waiting for?"_

_She shook her head. She lost count._

_"I'm not going to do what nature is already doing. God, you stink."_

_"I'm dying, you bitch. Of course I stink. I'm about to shit the bed."_

_"So it's only going to stink worse."_

_He laughed until pain stopped him. She didn't need to see beneath his cocoon to imagine his roughly bandaged bullet wounds leaking pus._

_"What are you going to do without me?"_

_"Get out of this shitty country."_

_"And go where? You don't have a passport. You're abandoning your list."_

_"I'll come back."_

_His foggy, yellowing eyes regarded her. If she didn't know better, she would say he looked upon her with fondness._

_"Don't forget what I taught you."_

_"You beat it all into me. I won't forget."_

_"Yeah. Well. Good luck out there, you little cunt."_

_"Have fun in hell, you piece of shit."_

_"I'll save you a seat. Right next to me."_

_She could've given him a retort, but she bit it back. If this was the last time he was going to speak to anyone living, at the very least, she could give him the last word. Arya walked out the door without looking back._

 

She lights another cigarette and sits with her back against the concrete barricade, shadowed by a generator and the entrance to the stairwell. She had started smoking at thirteen, if only to find a small way to irritate the hound when she stole from his pack. In Italy, she had dropped the habit altogether, except for when a name she assumed had necessitated it. Now, she smokes because it gives her hands something to do so they're not twitching over the trigger.

Suddenly, she hears cameras snapping and a flurry of noise. She flies back into her crouch. A limousine has pulled up to the scene and all the journalists have scattered like roaches when the lights turn on. Her pulse hammers in her chest and ears until it consumes her and she is just one loud, suspended heartbeat.

The doors open and the chorus of questions reach a crescendo. First, there are men in suits and police officers, talking into their shoulders. Then, she emerges. She's beautiful. Her blonde hair is piled high, exposing the elegant sweep of her shoulders. She wears all white - Cersei Lannister has never been subtle. The finger hovering over the trigger is still, but the rest of her trembles, bones and teeth shaking together so hard that she's surprised she doesn't sound like a wind chime.

 

_He had been surprisingly easy to find, but then again, she had gotten very good at finding the people she needed. He didn't recognize her at first and had offered to show her pawned jewelry. It wasn't until she had called him a fucking idiot that he knew who she was._

_They had tumbled into bed a short while later. He took her virginity; he didn't know until she told him. Afterward, she smoked a cigarette, naked in his lumpy mattress on the floor while he watched her with wide eyes. As if she would disappear if he blinked. She told him her goals._

_"And what happens after that?"_

_"After Cersei dies?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"I don't know. I'll figure it out then."_

_"Whatever you do, can you do it with me?"_

_She paused, considering._

_"Maybe."_

Cersei is slowed by the throng of bodies. Arya lines her up in her sights. The world slows, centering upon this one moment, on her, her quarry, and her gun. A shot rings out.

It's not hers.  She can’t even tell what direction it came from.

Blood sprays into the air. Screams bubble forth and policemen and bodyguards leap nobly but it's too late. Cersei falls, limp.

For a moment, all Arya can do is stare. Then she laughs. It starts as a chuckle, then becomes a guffaw that shakes her shoulders and her hands, tightens her guts, knocks her off the balls of her feet. She lies flat on the ground, laughing until tears spill from her eyes. She can't tell where her giggles end and the sobs begin and maybe they don't, maybe they're just together, some unnamed expression of some unnamed emotion that is loss and humor and sorrow and anger all at once.

This was supposed to be hers. Like everything else, it was taken from her.

 

 


End file.
